Show Summary

Adam opens the show talking with Ray about sleeping in and missing his chance to go back on The Tonight Show. Ray then talks about the garage he’s converting to a motorcycle shop, and the guys respond to a video question about removing paint from brick. Next up, Adam and Ray answer an email about repaving an area with a parking lot safety poll. During Just the Tip, the guys go on a tangent about ridiculous yearbook pictures, and the show wraps up with calls about moisture problems, porcelain, and woodpecker problems.

If you raise the goal post it greatly increase the wind load on the foundation system and the joint where the post connects to the horizontal post. It’s like putting a cheater bar on a pipe wrench. I design and build structural steel and speak from experience in this. It could be done, but you would need a thicker tube steel for the whole system and probably a gusset on the joint. Could also need a larger footer.

I think you may have overplayed your hand a bit when you mentioned that it would “greatly increase the wind load”… Some of these posts are indoors and wind is not a factor. Aside from that if you are telling me that 20lbs of added steel is gonna rip the post out of the ground by the foundation I would question your data. I would assume that the people that build stadiums consider wind when erecting the goalposts and over compensate to protect themselves from a hurricane scale gust toppling the structure and injuring hundreds of fans or tens of players in the process. I don’t question your qualifications as a steel structure engineer but maybe as it pertains to stadium construction unless you are in fact on the ground floor of the stadium construction business. If that is the case I would think that you would have an alternative plan for determining whether or not a kick is fair or no good aside from what you appear to believe could only be done by leveling the whole system and staring again with a whole new set up.

I don’t design stadiums, but I have seen 2′ thick steel columns bend like pretzel in a heavy wind. I suppose if the stadium is domed and is not retractable then wind would not be a factor. It looks like 6″ pipe used for the goal post which weighs about 20lb/ft. If you add 10′ to either side of the post the weight would be about 200 lbs per side. Since the post is effectively a lever that 200 lbs would at least double at the fulcrum point which would be where the post 90’s from vertical to horizontal. So the extra 400lbs of pressure could snap that connection. Then the point at which each side comes together would be another fulcrum point with both sides putting pressure on it for at least 800lbs of pressure. As I said, I don’t know if the footer would need to be redesigned.
Jimmy Graham from the Saints bent a goal post by hanging on it. He weighs about 265.

The guy wires would work, but they would have figure out where to put them so nobody runs into them.